Film Tropes of Black Characters
This is a stereotype of a hypersexual, seductive, and sexually voracious black woman. Her value in society or the relative media is based almost purely on her sexuality and her body. The roots of this stereotype emerged during the era of chattel slavery in the United States.
What is The Jezabel?
This Black Queer author wrote "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master's House", an essay discussing the need for diverse voices in feminist spaces.
Who is Audre Lorde?
Known for his work in Vogue, openly gay, Black fashion designer.
Andre Leon Talley
This film was directed by Kasi Lemmons and follows a Black Creole family in 1960s Louisiana as they navigate family dynamics, hoodoo, and tweens...
What is Eve's Bayou?
The queer black anthropologist and author of "Their Eyes Were Watching God". Her legacy was revitalized by Alice Walker in a famous essay.
Who is Zora Neale Hurston?
This is a caricature that is popular in amongst Black women characters devaluing their agency, ridding them of sexuality, and often making them in content in spaces of solitude.
What is the mammy trope?
This theory was coined by Alice Walker and is famously described as "...is to feminism as purple is to lavender."
What is womanism?
An American poet, journalist, and political activist. Among the first generation of African Americans born free in the Southern United States after the end of the American Civil War, she was one of the prominent African Americans involved in the artistic flourishing of the Harlem Renaissance. She famously attended "Straight University" in New Orleans although she was anything but...
Who is Alice Dunbar Nelson?
Arthur Jafa's cinematography in Daughters of The Dust inspired the shot design for this famous visual album starring Beyonce
What is Lemonade?
The mayor elect of New York City, who ran on a campaign promising free public bus transportation and allied himself with trans people, immigrants, and anti-imperialist advocates?
Who is Zohran Mamdani?
This trope is a supporting stock character who comes to the aid of the protagonists in a film, often at his own demise.
What is the magical negro?
Coined by Kimberle Crenshaw this term describes how different aspects of a person's identity, like race, gender, and class, can overlap and combine to create unique experiences of discrimination and privilege.
What is intersectionality?
Queer Black author who theorized the philosophy of womanism and wrote "The Color Purple".
Who is Alice Walker?
This now-classic queer film about Black and Latinx drag culture in New York City was one of the first documentaries to follow drag ball culture and its performers.
What is Paris is Burning?
This famous Black philosopher wrote "The Criteria of Negro Art"
Who is W.E.B. DuBois?
An often biracial woman who is struggling with her identity or faces societal backlash that leads to her downfall due to her mixed heritage.
What is the tragic mulatto trope?
This bisexual poet, activist, journalist, essayist, and teacher's work explored issues of race, gender identity, and immigration. She often wrote about the liberation of Palestine and other colonized spaces which led to her being ostracized by cohorts such as Audre Lorde.
Who is June Jordan?
A trans black woman who was pivotal in the Stonewall Riots and the fight for gay/trans liberation in New York City
Who is Marsha P. Johnson?
This film directed by Mira Nair tells of an interracial relationship between an African American man and a woman of South Asian descent in the American South.
What is Mississippi Masala?
This famous American bass-baritone concert artist, actor, professional football player, and activist became famous internationally both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political stances. He has a tomato named after him and was well known in the USA and Europe as a champion for labor rights.
Who is Paul Robeson?
This is a Black person who is perceived as subservient to white people in an attempt to gain favor or approval. The term is used as a derogatory insult to accuse someone of betraying their own community to gain personal advancement, often by reinforcing oppressive systems
What is an Uncle Tom?
This is 1981 anthology series by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua that is composed of a series of literature written by "Third World Women of Color".
What is This Bridge Called My Back?
An American trans civil rights activist, advocate, legal scholar and theorist, author and – later in life – an Episcopal priest, their work influenced the civil rights movement and expanded legal protection for gender equality
Who is Pauli Murray?
This 1954 Black film directed by Otto Preminger stars Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte, Pearl Bailey, Diahann Carroll etc and is based off a French opera.
What is Carmen Jones?
This was the movement of African and African American filmmakers who studied at UCLA from the late 1960s to the 1980s, creating an independent Black cinema. Julie Dash and Arthur Jafa (director and cinematographer, respectively) were a part of this movement.
The LA Black Film Rebellion